Three gold coins sat on the tabletop.

An unpleasant band of tightness gripped Kailas Darkchar’s chest. The sensation appeared whenever her father asked her to perform for strangers.

‘Touch them, girl,’ said the old priest, across the kitchen table.

He had turned up on her father’s doorstep at daybreak, dressed in stained red robes, black gloves, and leather boots. A simple, black-cloth mask covered his lower face.

The Mayqsa word for it was a tajuk, he said, to be worn out in the world, but now he was inside he could remove it. He was footsore and hungry from hiking a day and night across Ithos Darg’s balsite plains to reach their door, and showed them the splintered end of his walking stick to prove it. He would be glad of a moment by their fireside.

The priest leant across the small table, open-mouthed in anticipation. His few remaining strands of white hair were the same colour as his skin. His breath gusted across the table, rank as fermented fish.

Kailas turned her face to the blazing hearth, taking deep breaths of smoke and fumes. The acrid tang of burning torquor rock was almost pleasant by comparison.

What was he doing here? By all accounts, the Mayqsa had been a great religion, but that had been hundreds of lifetimes ago. Nowadays, the Mayqsa faithful were rarely seen and barely mentioned. They spent their lives hidden within a hollow seastack off the west coast, called The Rock. Rumours abounded about what went on in there. Blood sacrifice. Arcane ceremonies.

Kailas had no wish to know more. The priest’s expectations must have been great for him to have undertaken such a journey. Yet, his efforts were in vain. She had other plans.

‘Come on.’ The priest tapped the coins with a gloved finger. ‘Don’t keep me in suspense.’

Kailas’s father, standing by her shoulder, took her hand in an iron grip and pushed it forcefully onto the coins.

‘Father!’ Kailas wrenched her arm from his callused grip and shot him a glare.

Her father shrugged, as if to say, what’s done is done, and nodded at the table.

The priest let out a cackle, revealing a handful of teeth lodged precariously in his jaw, each one brown as a wooden peg.

The gold coins had gone. In their place sat three black pebbles.

‘Excellent!’ The priest grinned, his pale skin crinkling like parchment. ‘When news of your talents reached me, I knew there must be something to it!’ He pointed at her father. ‘You say, the girl dispels everything? No matter how powerful?’

Kailas glowered. She was twenty-three years of age, yet both men talked as though she wasn’t there.

‘That’s right.’ Her father hooked one hand round his tool-belt. ‘Magic fails when she touches it. Spells have no effect. She can walk straight through anything.’

The priest reached a shaky hand across the table and pinched Kailas’s cheek.

‘Very good, Kailas Darkchar.’ His eyes gleamed. He cupped his hands, brought them together and covered his eyes. ‘I must give thanks for this day.’

‘But I haven’t agreed to anything,’ Kailas said, resentment settling in her gut as he ignored her and started to pray.

It had been this way as long as she could remember; her dreams of making her own way in the world crushed beneath her father’s schemes and expectations. Nothing would change, unless she forced the change herself.

She leant over to the priest and said plainly, ‘Whatever it is, I’m not doing it.’

‘Yaq Mayaqdor sim tor...yaq Mayqsa assrah bek…’ The priest was lost in prayer and did not react, even when she repeated herself.

‘Leave him, girl.’ Her father waited beside the hearth, stoking the fire with a poker.

Kailas sank back in her chair, looking past the priest to the small, grimy window that overlooked the blackmetal factory. Her father’s rented ground-level rooms were unpleasantly close to the factory’s pluming funnels. Every time they came in, they had to stamp the black from their boots.

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The sorry view only strengthened her resolve to go her own way. Two years ago, she and her father had lived in a tower house in a respectable district. But her father’s gambling obsession had got them evicted. Most of his earnings from shoemaking went to the bear pits, death arenas and any other disreputable den he could find with a table, dice, or stack of cards.

Now, his losing streak had become her problem. Her hard-earned wages from clerking barely covered food and rent. There wasn’t enough left over to satisfy his creditors. Only last week, a terrifying individual had turned up in the middle of the night, threatening to break down the door and her father’s legs if he didn’t repay his loans with interest. Her father could sell his shop to settle his debts, but Kailas knew the cycle would begin again. She couldn’t break it, but she could leave.

The priest’s devotions went on and on. He rocked back and forth in the chair, muttering strange prayers.

Kailas reached the end of her tether. She was determined to make her feelings plain. A swift apology for the priest’s wasted journey should suffice. She would make up a bundle of food and send him on his way.

Before she could prod the priest’s shoulder, he fell silent and drew his hands away from his face. He fumbled in the folds of his robes for an oilskin pouch and a folded square of parchment, which he pushed across the table.

‘Sign the contract. Come with me today, and this is yours.’ The pouch made a clink as he dropped it on the table. ‘There will be more payments if you serve the Mayqsa well.’

The priest loosened the drawstring and tipped out the coins – royal gold crowns, the King’s head worn with age. Her father gave her the look. He wanted her to touch the money to prove it was real.

Kailas kept her hands on her lap. The amount of gold on the table meant danger, not that her father cared. He was happy to sell her services to anyone willing to pay, as long as the price was right.

The problem was, no-one respectable wanted to hire her. Her father had dragged her before court officials and factory owners, mapmakers and industrialists, telling them she was the future, the antidote to the thriving magical industries in Ordasius. But the city wasn’t interested. Mealduthians wanted to create magic to compete with the royal city, not destroy it. The politics of commerce were plain to Kailas, but her father wouldn’t listen, or try to understand.

And now, this raggedy, frail old priest was offering more money than the Greyman Guild and the wealthy Darkmages for her services. She had turned both guilds down and earned her father’s rage. He hadn’t struck her yet, but she feared it was coming.

‘I think we can do business,’ her father told the priest. His grip tightened on Kailas’ shoulder.

‘I say, no.’ Kailas shrugged his hand off, and pushed the coins back across the tabletop. The gold did not alter at her touch.

‘Come on, girl. Think straight!’ her father snapped. ‘There can’t be any harm in listening to what the fellow has to say.’ He scooped up a handful of gold. By the hungry look in his eyes, he was already placing his bets.

The priest flipped open the parchment, and pointed to a space at the bottom. ‘All you have to do is sign.’

Kailas’ heart picked up pace as she looked at the contract. The Mayqsa seal — a white circle in a black square — sat next to the dotted line. Bloody looking words in a strange language ran along the bottom. A shiver went through her as she stared at them.

‘It is very simple,’ the priest said. ‘You will travel with our brethren to the Ithos Darg forest. From there, you will go on alone to our founding temple, which sits in a clearing to the south-west. Once you have performed a small task for us, you can return home.’

‘What small task?’ Kailas asked.

‘Trust us, Kailas. We will look after you.’ The priest bowed, muttering under his breath, ‘We will not fail again.’

‘No one can enter the forest,’ Kailas said. ‘It’s dead, the trees are dead, and anyone who tries to enter is dead, too. It’s been that way forever.’

‘Not forever.’ The priest waggled his finger at her. ‘Eight hundred and sixty-three years, to be exact. But you are mistaken about one thing, my girl. With your special ability, you can enter the forest. We have tried many times to reach the temple, but we cannot go deep enough. It seems, the faithful must suffer.’

The priest pulled off his gloves. His fingers were blackened, with twisted lumps where the nails should have been. The lines on his palms were a tracery of black veins.

Kailas swallowed hard. Whatever had happened to him, she didn’t want it happening to her.

‘Do it, and I’ll let you keep half,’ her father said.

‘No.’ Kailas wiped clammy hands on her trousers, unwilling to be beholden to her father, the guilds, the Mayqsa, or anyone else in Ithos Darg.

The priest met her eyes. The depth of hope in his gaze made her falter, before she remembered this was her life, not his.

‘I’m sorry you’ve had a wasted journey.’ Kailas pushed her chair back with a loud scrape and went over to the loaf on the chopping board. ‘I’ll pack you some food.’

‘Kailas!’ her father hissed through his teeth. ‘Sign the contract!’

Ignoring him, Kailas grabbed the breadknife and sawed off an awkward hunk.

The old priest narrowed his eyes, and whispered, ‘The Mayqsa will have you.’

He spoke so quietly, Kailas couldn’t be sure she’d heard him correctly. A sudden chill passed through her. She turned to face him, gripping the knife handle tight.

‘What did you say?’

‘I said, it would be wise to accept my offer.’ The priest paused. ‘I am moderate in my views, but my brethren… Let me put it this way. They are not like me.’

‘Are you threatening me?’

‘I am simply explaining things to you.’

‘At least think about it,’ her father interrupted. ‘Do it for me.’

Kailas set down the knife and stood at the counter with her head bowed. ‘I can’t. I have to make my mark in my own way.’

‘Your destiny says different.’ The priest observed her, his eyes black pools. ‘You can do great things, Kailas Darkchar, if you look beyond your own desires.’

Kailas bit her lip and stared at the crumbs on the board. When had she thought about her own desires? She spent her days working hard for too little, and failing to manage her father’s destructive behaviour. The priest’s thinly veiled threat was the final straw. If she stayed, there would be another knock at the door. Another stranger with a dangerous plan.

She stared at the priest.

‘The answer’s no. And that’s that.’